Thank you for this info. I'm just starting out down the embedded path and have lots of great practical use ideas, but I'm having trouble finding the best path for my investment in debugging and test hardware.

Am I a fan of Eclipse? It doesn't rteally matter to me. Some IDEs use Eclipse, some use NetBeans, and others use their own framework. As long as the tools work the underlying foundation doesn't matter much--at least to me. Perhaps Eclipse offers some benefits because people can drop in add-on programs. I have also heard Eclipse can be a pain to configure properly.

Thanks for a great intro, Jon. In answer to the moderator's question, I have used some kits from Freescale (Tower, quickstick and others and a TI MSP430 kit. Am currently experimenting with a Parallax Prepeller BOE. These are good paths for learning about the capabilities of ucontorllers, I have not done any product development yet.

Most dev kits aren't meant to convert into an application board, although you could use it that way by making I/O connections to the five sets of male pins. Most of the engineers I know would lay out their own board and go from there with a prototype more suited to their final design. Some boards are better than others for use in prototypes, and I'll cover some over the next sessions.

Debugging capabilities are good and complete. You can monitor variables, trace code, and so on. Pretty much the typical debug tools available. The current-measurement pi9ns let you measure current during code execution, but I don't know a way to correlate it with code unless you include an I/O "trigger" command in your code to trigger a scope and measure the current across a small resistor.

Dev Kits provide a good headstart not just for the s/w guys, but also the h/w designers who need to test the capapbilities of a device before committing to an expensive prototype. They are also a good way to keep skills up between design projects, and to explore new technologies with low cost.

Expect to use more kits in future as chips & SW get more complex especially since some kits are so inexpensive. Fine pitch on some parts make it difficult and expensive to roll first prototype for development from scratch.

Keil (and uVision) is currently fully supported. It will run independantly of P32. If desired AppBuilder can output a uVision Project for consumption by uVision. IAR will be supported in the near future.

I have and used a lot of boards (30+) but most dev boards do not have enough possibilities to evaluate all you need or want.

most of the time you want something what that board do not cover.

you are limited at what the designer implemented and do not have even the option to switch to something else using let say, changing some configuration resistors (what is the easiest way to do it – jumpers are not always the best solution).

usually independent when doing simple projects. As soon as the level of complexity rises, like incorporating a library or stack (bluetooth, TCP/IP, etc), that's when all hell usually breaks loose. Sometimes, help from the vendor is needed to get through these times...

Hey all, The code red licence that comes with the kit (no cost) supports development of code up to 256kB (which is the amount of onboard flash). It does require 'activation' (registration), but the process requires only an email address.

Hello, Pickering. I guess it depends on whether you might use this kit, which provides an ARM Cortex-M3 core. If you have no interest in this type of processor or kit, it still might be worth learning about the hardware and software. Up to you, of course. --Jon

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